Darcy Clark, left, is handing off her tuxedo rental business to Anne Hoag, right, who will run it out of Cabin Fever on Park Street. (Provided photo — Jordan Hoag)

TUPPER LAKE — This town’s supplier of tuxedos for the past two decades, Darcy Clark, recently handed off her business to Anne Hoag, owner of Cabin Fever on Park Street.

Clark has two more weddings to suit up, one for her nephew, and Hoag booked her first wedding last week.

“It’s bittersweet. It’s very bittersweet,” Clark said of handing off the business. She had been thinking of doing that for a couple years, and in April decided to give Hoag a call. “I always thought about Anne because of her flowers.”

Hoag said at first, she didn’t want to add another thing to her list of businesses. After a second thought, though, she said she realized it would be a “good marriage” with her existing businesses. She also does wedding planning, runs a gift shop, flower shop and greenhouse. Also, inside Cabin Fever is Woodland Massage by Kristen Churco and a foot soaking parlor.

“It only took me about three seconds to say ‘absolutely,'” Hoag said. “This space, I almost feel was designed for that exact thing because we have an area for the guys to all sit in and we have an area for the guys to get dressed in.”

This year, prom landed on Mother’s Day weekend, a busy time for both flowers and tuxedos, so Clark started to teach Hoag how to take measurements afterward.

“I had to learn all this on my own, basically,” Clark said. “So I’m like, ‘No, I’m not going to do that to you, Anne.'”

Clark started renting tuxedos 22 years ago when her cousin, who owns a bridal store, asked if she wanted to start doing dresses. Clark said she’d rather do men’s clothing and her cousin hooked her up with Sarno and Son, a tuxedo studio in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Clark had already been grooming dogs in her home for around a decade and added tuxedos to her house-run business ventures. She said the closest tuxedo rental shop to Tupper Lake is T.F. Finnigan’s in Saranac Lake, which also uses Sarno and Son.

“I originally thought, ‘OK, I’ll do this until my son graduates,'” Clark said. “And then Colton graduated and I continued, and I thought, ‘Well, OK. I’ll do this until Delaney graduates.’ She graduated a couple years ago, but I still know the classes; I still know the parents; I still know the kids.”

In 2005, Clark went back to college and now works at Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake doing X-ray and mammogram work.

“I’ve been doing all three for 11 years,” Clark said. “I’m tired.”

Clark said something had to give and that while tuxedo rentals were good for a little extra money, as she had no overhead, dog grooming was more steady. She said she would, on average, do two to 10 weddings a year, and that she always had a good prom season.

She said she loved the job, but it was always long work preparing her house for customers.

“It became too much like work,” Clark said.

Clark said she always tried to make the rental process easy, casual and friendly. Operating out of her home gave her freedom. She could work around customers’ schedules, have them drop the tuxes back off in her coat room and offer Bud Light — to the adults, not the seniors — when they came by for measurements.

She remembered a big wedding party came by once with two 30-racks of beer and hung out with her on her porch for hours after she had finished measuring everyone.

Hoag said she is keeping up the tradition, offering wine, tea, coffee, as well as Budweiser and Labatt.

Clark clarified that the beer was for the wedding party adults, not the seniors getting ready for prom. Clark said she will miss the kids most. She has seen many classes of seniors go to prom over the years and described how they would stand taller after seeing how they looked dressed up in the mirror.

Clark said she is not really selling the company, rather, she’s handing the responsibility of clothing seniors and groomsmen alike to a new clothier.

“It’s the personalization that I’m looking forward to. Just being able to provide the bride with a comforted feeling that things are all just being taken care of,” Hoag said. “Part of my wedding planning is making sure her men are all completely suited up for the occasion.”

She will make the adjustments herself. Hoag said she has been an art and costume designer most of her life.

“I’ve won a lot of awards for Halloween costumes,” she said.

As she prepares for her first client’s wedding in September, Hoag said she looks forward to being Tupper Lake’s one-stop shop for proms and wedding parties.